T3 Awards 2016: who's nominated for Connected Home Tech of the Year?

Hail the smart home gear that took the houses of 2016 into the future

The best-connected, smartest home tech. The kit that most improves your life, or at least leaves visiting friends and relatives green with envy. Here we've rounded up all the best in this category. Also check out all the details about this year's T3 Awards powered by EE

Dyson Pure Cool Link

Looking very much like Dyson's splendid fans, Pure Cool Link comes in a desktop (£350) and tower (£450) version. It uses a unique 360-degree Glass HEPA filter to suck "99.95% of allergens, odours and pollutants as small as 0.1µ" from your festering kitchen-dinerette.

The glass filter costs £50, and should be replaced every 12 months with normal use. The science bit: 1.1 m² of constructed microfibers, pleated over 200 times, mean it can trap minute particles - not just pollen but chemical traces and even bacteria.

The first connected Dyson product, the Pure Cool Link has an app that allows you to monitor your place's air quality from afar, and track how it changes over time. Slightly curiously, it doesn't actually allow you to turn the purifier on and off. Instead, it uses an auto mode to respond to in-home pollutement.

Samsung Family Hub

A massive fridge with a family-friendly infotainment tablet on the front, and cameras inside so you can monitor food supplies. The European edition is somewhat smaller than the US version, with the fridge on top and the freezer at the bottom. You know, like a normal fridge freezer.Three inner-view cameras take photos of refrigerator contents each time the doors close.Family Hub owners can also keep track of expiration dates by entering the number of days their food has left.

Philips Hue White Ambiance Starter Kit

Along with an updated app, this cemented Hue's place as The Sultan of Smart Lights. Bet you never knew 'white' came in so many colours. Anyway, it enables you to enjoy relentless natural white light for "any moment of your day, from sunrise to sunset". You can go on and add up to 50 Philips Hue lights, luminaires, switches and other accessories, too.

Nespresso Prodigio

Nespresso has it all: adverts featuring George Clooney, a carefully cultivated area of premium mystique, and pods that start at 29p per cup… actually, Nespresso is quite an irritating brand, isn't it? However, if you can get past that, its machines do produce very good coffee… And they now come with smartphone control, no less. Heading up the new breed of connected coffee makers for Pod people is the Nespresso Prodigio.

The machine is controlled via an app and Bluetooth, letting you brew up from the couch or your bed. Although you will then have to go and collect the coffee, so maybe that isn't so amazing. The app will also tell you when tank-filling (the capacity is 0.8 litres), capsule bin-emptying and servicing are required, lets you set a timer and, of course, order new capsules.

Samsung SmartThings Starter Kit

Knits together today's modern smart home with its mix of deep functionality with core SmartThings and wide compatibility with older devices. You get a choice of window and door alarms, which will send you a text alert or set off the optional burglar alarm when tripped. But you can also link it to your Hue lights using the IFTTT app on your phone, and make them flash red.

Hive 2

Hive 1: effective… But dowdy. Hive 2: effective… And sexy! So now we like it. Yes, we're shallow. The Hive family of accessories is cool, too. Hive 2 has a smear-resistant, mirrored finish that hides a display optimised for viewing even by the visually impaired. It's also easy to programme, has big friendly buttons on top for an instant "boost" to your hot water, heating or both, plus a tactile knob and a choice of 11 coloured surrounds plus a "wood effect" one for people with no taste.